Donald Clark Plan B

What is Plan B? Not Plan A!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Piaget (1896-1980) – ages and stages - but mostly bad science

Jean
Piaget, the Swiss psychologist, claimed that cognitive development proceeds in
four genetically determined stages, and that they always follow the same order.
This theory of child development, he called ‘genetic epistemology’, and it saw the minds of
children as very different from those of adults. Importantly, this perception
must be taken into account in teaching and learning. Big problem – he got it
mostly wrong.

Each of these stages had a more
granular structure which Piaget explored in some detail. His emphasis on
mathematical and analytic task experimentation has been criticized as being a
little narrow. However, this, he saw as a good indicator of general cognitive
development.

Famous four-stages
demolished

His famous four stage developmental model has been fairly well demolished.

First, the Sensimotor Stage with the infamous ‘hide a toy
under a cloth and the child thinks it’s no longer there’ study, which turned
out to be an exercise in distraction, and when repeated by Bower and Wishart in
the absence of an adult, with a teddy, most children had no difficulty in
understanding that the toy is still under the cloth. In general, Piaget simply
focussed too much on motor actions when the real development is perceptual.
Kagan also attributes object permanence to a simple increase in memory
capacity.

Second, the Pre-operational Stage study, where a child fails
to recognise a doll’s point of view from photographs of three mountains, was
shown to be too complex for the children to understand. A simpler experiment by
Hughes, using dolls of two policeman, showed that many children can understand
non-egocentric perspectives.

Third, the Concrete Operation Stage was refuted by Rose and
Blank, when it was found that Piaget had been verbally correcting the children
towards his wanted conclusions, invalidating the data. The ‘naughty teddy’
experiment also wiped out his famous three rows of sweets trial supposedly
showing that kids couldn’t get constancy in number. Overall he ignored
hereditary, educational and cultural effects, thereby standardising theory,
when, in fact, there are large differences in the speed and nature of development
due to these and other factors

Fourthly, the Formal Operative Stage focused too much on
formal logic, ignoring many other mature cognitive skills. It’s as if we were
all little mathematicians, not ‘little scientists’. In fact kids develop, not
in a predictable, linear fashion, but in fits and starts, and in many different
ways.

All in all, his four stages were abandoned as subsequent
research showed that development takes place much earlier than he had posited,
is more of a continuum, with more variation in ages and more plasticity than
was previously thought.

Poor scientist

How did he get it so wrong? Well, like Freud, he was no
scientist. First, he used his own three children (or others from wealthy,
professional families) and not objective or multiple observers to eliminate
observational bias. Secondly, he often repeated a statement if the child’s
answer did not conform to his experimental expectation. Thirdly, the data and
analysis lacked rigour, making most of his supposed studies next to useless.
So, he led children towards the answers he wanted, didn’t isolate the tested
variables, used his own children, and was extremely vague on his concepts.

Conclusion

Is there much, or anything, that is useful in Piaget to a
teacher? His four-stage theory of child development has been so completely
negated by subsequent studies, that it’s merely an exercise in the history of
science. Piaget was the dominant force in
child psychology but many of his claims are now subject to a critique from
Bruner, Vygotsky, other constructivists and other developmental psychologists, who see a more malleable developmental picture. What's
worrying is the fact that this Piagean view of child development, based on
'ages and stages' is still widely believed, despite being quite wrong. This
leads to misguided teaching methods. Education and training is still soaked in
this dated theory. However, on
the whole, his sensitivity to age and cognitive development did lead to a more
measured and appropriate use of educational techniques that matched the true
cognitive capabilities of children.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Althusser (1918-1990) – schools as ISAs and filters for class and labour

Despite the sad end to his life – he strangled his wife and spent his last
years in an asylum, Althuser, born in Algiers, attempted to reconcile Marxism
with structuralism. Like
Gramsci, Althusser saw education as the means by which the class system
perpetuates itself, stratifying people into workers, the petty bourgeoisie and
capitalists. Schools are a means of control by the ruling class and capitalism,
and a preparation for work (work being the defining characteristic of
submission and class). The appearance of a meritocracy in schools, he thinks, masks
the reality of ideological control. He says this through, what at times, is
almost unreadable prose and jargon.

Ideological State
Apparatuses - schools

Education
is an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) working through schools, family,
culture, politics, the law and unions. These must be distinguished from a
Repressive State Apparatus (RSA); such as the army, police, prisons and courts.
He saw himself as providing an improved Marxist analysis of the role of
education by identifying it as an Ideological State Apparatus that controls
rather than enlightens. However, he avoids interpreting this as a conspiracy or
planned phenomenon. It is simply a function of a scientific Marxist analysis of
capitalism.

Schools – the
primary ISA

Schools
(although it is sometimes unclear whether he means schools or education in
general) are the primary ISA that reproduce ruling ideology. It does this
through grading and assessment, so that the individual strives to achieve what
is set as standards of achievement, yet in reality are merely state sponsored
selection devices for work and class roles.

Schools and labour

We
have much to learn from his analysis of the role of education in sorting and
ranking people for the labour market and the political role of assessment and
the illusion of meritocracy in schools. Some would argue that education has
been subjected to intense political and ideological control, a process which
must be rolled back to a more meritocratic and balanced approach.

Religion

Education
was not the only ISA for Althusser, religion was another and this has turned
out to be just as powerful a force in terms of the reinforcement of power
through education. In some states, such as Israel and Arab states, the state
religion is a core curriculum subject, in many others it is less explicit but
just as strong a presence. In many ways this is a more obvious form of
ideological apparatus, pushing young minds towards a specific, dominant set of
beliefs before they have the ability to choose.

Conclusion

We
can learn from Althusser, that education is not a neutral activity. It is often
loaded with politics, religion and other underlying belief systems. Rather than
being a producing autonomous, open-minded adult, it can to a degree, produce
mere followers and close young minds. There is some truth in this idea of
education perpetuating the myth of ideological positions but some of
Althusser’s theories are extremely abstract, and those who saw themselves as
changing the world through education were to be bitterly disappointed. It was
they who were seen to be clinging on to an ideology, which in itself has had
its day. With Althusser, Marxist theory in education had run its course.
History, a much admired Marxist tool, had proved them wrong.

Bibliography

Althusser, Louis,(1977) Lenin and
Philosophy" and Other Essays. London: New Left Books

Habermas (1929- ): ideology, action but lost on new media

Habermas,
building on the work of his teacher Adorno and Marx, critiqued capitalism and
was firmly in favour of equality and democracy. We see here a neutered from of
Marxism that looks for ideological causes of oppression in capitalism and a
philosophy of action to bring about change, albeit in the context of social
democracy. His influence on education has been considerable.

Ideology critique

A
dominant ideology imposes power over disempowered groups. The disempowered may,
or may not, be conscious of their position of weakness. Education must address
this by making it clear what ideological forces are at work, then a look at the
causes that give rise to these power structures. As a philosophy of change he
also recommends action

Action research

This
is a call for research by and within the educational system to counter
ideological, political pressure and reduce inequalities. It relies on a theory
of knowledge that owes much to Marx, namely the idea that all knowledge has a
‘social’ context or is socially constructed, so that all taught knowledge is
inherently ideological and never neutral. Such research involves technical,
practical and emancipatory goals. Technical includes control through the
scientific approach, practical the qualitative analysis of the social context
and emancipatory is to free people from the chains of their ideological
oppression.

What to do

Habermas
and his followers are not short on suggested action. The direct effect of the Habermas
theory is to change the curriculum towards inclusive activity that critiques
ideology through cultural studies, political discussion, citizenship, media
studies, humanities and subjects that reflect on the process of education
itself. In practice, teaching needs to accommodate discussion, problem solving,
collaboration, and community-related learning. Teachers need to become
political agents.

However,
while it is hard to defend teachers as political agents or the extremes of
socially constructed knowledge; curriculum policy, design and content are
certainly ideological, in the sense of being politicised. There is much to be
gained by listening to calls for inclusion, student participation and the
student voice in education. Education, for Habermas should not simply fill up
the recipients with the current canon but promote participation.

Technology

The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere is an analysis of ‘representational’ communications beyond the
control of the state starting in the 18th century with newspapers,
coffee shops and so on . Then the capitalist ‘public sphere’ where he contends
that mass, broadcast media destroyed this earlier dialogue-based culture, when
audiences became passive. To be frank he’s been overtaken by events and public
statements show he neither understands new media nor its consequences. This is
surprising, as it is mass new media that resturns us to active participation
and dialogue. This may also be true in education where ew can escape the
strictures of a culturally controlled canon.

Conclusion

Habermas
has had a huge influence on educational theorising. We see in this form of social
constructivism underlying, generalist claims about the social nature of all knowledge,
that now seem both dated and impractical. On top of this, the fight against
ideology suffers from appearing to be ideologically driven. Action research
could be criticised for allowing a soft and woolly approach to educational
research that has led to little or no change in the way Habermas and his
followers had hoped. But, above all, he is misinformed and misguided on the
role of technology.

Bibliography

Habermas
J. (1971) The Structural Transformation
of the Public Sphere,transl. ShapiroHeinemann.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Gramsci (1891-1937) – hegemony, intellectuals and informal learning

Jailed by Mussolini, Gramsci wrote 32 notebooks, written over 11
years in prison but wasn’t published in English until the 1970s. If you hear
the word ‘hegemony’ it’s likely to have come from someone who has read, or just
as likely not read but unknowingly quoting, Gramsci.

As a Marxist his focus was on cultural and ideological forces in
society. Informal education along with defined roles for intellectuals and
redefining schools, are all main themes for Gramsci as he took Marxism and
updated its theories in the light of 20th century evidence. The
physical conflict between the classes became a mental conflict, where ideas
were the weapons, perpetuated through institutions, especially educational
institutions. He was to have a great influence on radical educational theorists
such as Freire and Illich.

Hegemony

Traditional Marxism saw class control and conflict as one of
domination and coercion. Gramsci saw that this was not subtle enough to explain
the status quo and thought that values, morals and social institutions kept
class structures in place. The common consciousness unwittingly adopts these
beliefs and preserves inequalities and domination. Two forces operate here; first
coercive institutions such as the armed services, police, government and
legislature, second non-coercive institutions such as schools, churches, trade
unions, social clubs and the family. Interestingly schools straddled both
categories with their coercive curriculum, standards, qualifications and
compulsion but also non-coercively through informal education, the hidden
curriculum.

Schools

Power for the ruling classes, comes not from force but ideological
manipulation and control. Schools and education play a major role in
perpetuating this hegemony, reinforcing the social norms of dominance and
obedience. The fact that different classes tend to have different schools is evidence
that this dynamic was operative. Schools, he thought, should give all pupils a
common grounding, free from social differences and we should be wary of
vocational schools for the poor and academic schools for the rich. Everyone
should have a good, grounded education, a comprehensive education. In many ways
the UKs comprehensive system had its roots in Gramsci. Like Dewey and many
others he saw learning as being active through activities. However, he was no
Rousseau-like romantic. Children, he recognised, did not take naturally to
learning.

Intellectuals

Intellectuals, for example academics, are often seen as being
above and apart from the ruling classes but Gramsci doubted this and saw some
as perpetuating the system. Indeed, some intellectuals are the product of this
class consciousness and their role is precisely the continuation of the current
system. His solution was to encourage intellectuals from other class
backgrounds to participate in political activity. This opened the door for a
more enlightened view of education and change, counter to the brutality of
anti-intellectualism of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

Informal
learning

Schools need to produce well-rounded participants in society, but
also intellectuals who would act as a brake on the power of the ruling classes
to exercise their power through education. The educated individual could act
critically to change society and play a significant role in society. Education
was therefore a powerful source of ideas and action in a society with the
capability of changing society for the better. This was a powerful force in 20th
century socialist thinking, where intellectuals, and worker’s education, were
regarded as being at the vanguard of working class consciousness and struggle.

Technology
and informal learning

Many still see informal, adult education as great force for good,
perhaps stripped of its Marxist clothes. The rise of technology may be moving
us in this direction with almost universal access to online knowledge through
Google, Wikipedia, Amazon and a plethora of other sources. A different breed of
intellectuals may arise, free from the control of institutional academia. We
may even see much learning break free, in the way Gramsci imagined, from the
control of formal, coercive curriculum, assessment, qualifications and
institutions.

Conclusion

Gramsci related Marxism directly to the institutions of education
and saw them as playing a key role in the ideological revolution. The role of
intellectuals, not merely academic, in changing society, was also recognised.
Many would argue that this sort of academic Marxism had a deleterious effect on
schooling, politicising education and schools. Others would still argue that an
egalitarian educational system is far from realisation and that Gramsci’s ideas
still have huge currency in modern debates on education and schooling. As with
so much of this debate, the danger lies in strong ideological positions being
taken at the expense of innovative practice and realism.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Marx (1818-1883) – education for all but the educated became the enemy

Although Karl Marx wrote little
on educational theory, his influence on learning theory and practice has been
profound. It was Marxism that underpinned the entire communist world’s view of
learning in the 20th century, especially through Marxist theorists
such as Gramsci and Althusser. In Soviet Russia and its satellite states
education was remoulded around political aims and when the Cultural Revolution
in China between 1949 and 1966 was unleashed, it had devastating consequences. To
this day Marxism, to a degree, persists in educational and learning theory,
most notably in the social constructivism of Vygotsky, Luria and Leontyev.

Education the result of economic structures

As Marx believed that our very
consciousness, as well as our theorising and institutions, were the result of
basic economic structures, education is seen as the result of existing class
structures. In practice, this means that the ruling class controls and
determines educational theory, policy and institutional development. In The
Communist manifesto (jointly authored with Engels)

For Marx, education has a ‘social’
context, which is both direct and indirect, ‘And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the
social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or
indirect, of society’. The solution to the dominance of the ruling class
was, first to abolish of child labour, then introduce free, state-funded education.
The ‘combination of education and
industrial production’ is also promoted, what we’d call vocational
training. Unfortunately, ‘dialectical materialism’ was the manifestation of
struggles between these groups within society and led to the identification of
educated people and groups as enemies of the state.

Gramsci and Althusser

It was left to later Marxists to
expand Marx’s social theory of education into working models that relate to
knowledge, intellectual development and education. Antonio Gramsci developed
these ideas further through ideas such as "ideological hegemony". The
ruling class determines what passes as knowledge or truth. Louis Althusser
developed this further exploring the way in which education, state, church, media
and other institutions become the ideological state apparatus. Class structures
determine knowledge and the means by which knowledge is transmitted, distributed
and taught. These ideas were to literally shape education for a large part of
the twentieth century across entire continents and in some outliers, notably
North Korea and Cuba, the idea persists.

Social constructivism

Marx is still having a profound
influence on educational theory today through social constructivist theory. The
resurrection of Vygotsky has led to strong beliefs and practices around the
role of the teachers and collaborative learning and the belief that social
context lies at the heart of educational problems. Here, it is clear that
Marxist ‘class consciousness’ is replaced by ‘social consciousness’. We no
longer have Marxist ideology shaping education, but we do have the ideas
dressed up in sociology and social psychology.

Technology and education

With remarkable foresight Marx
also predicted the massive impact technology would have on the division of labour.
His vision of a classless society would lead to such divisions disappear, with
education as the driver. The breakdown of traditional academic and vocational
should break down, ‘free them from the
one-sided character which the present-day division of labour impresses upon
every individual’. Individuals will have several careers and through ‘education…
pass from one branch of production to another in response to the needs of
society or their own inclinations’. This proved hard, if not impossible to
implement, even in hard-lined Communist countries.

Disastrous legacy

‘The
philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point,
however, is tochange
it’ said Marx. And change it they did, mostly for the worse.
The 20th century saw the dogmatism of Lysenko in Soviet Russia,
political indoctrination in schools and dialectical materialism interpreted by
Mao during the Cultural Revolution, into an intellectual pogrom. The results in
Cambodia, speak for themselves, with the virtual elimination of education and
the educated. With that and the collapse of the Soviet Union came the end of
the utopian dream.

Conclusion

We are still living with a
hangover of Marxist theory in education, especially through social
constructivist theories. Marxism is far from dead and the Marxist idea that
everything becomes commoditised, including knowledge and education, is useful
in combating the excesses of education and training aimed merely at increasing
productivity. On the positive side, the Victorian democratisation of education,
that arose from the industrial revolution, was transformed by Marxist and
socialist ideas into a movement that pushed for free, state-funded education as
a right for every citizen. This struggle is still raging as attempts are made
to widen access to education and higher education across all socio-economic
groups. In addition, the relationship between the state and education remains
problematic is worth examination, and Marxist theorists have much to say that
is useful in relation to the idea that education reflects and props up class
differences, by filtering people, not on ability, but social background.
Inequalities still exist and political interference through ideological, rather
than evidence-based policies, are still the norm. Few, for example, would see
even current education systems as truly meritocratic.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Dewey (1859 - 1952) – practical, problem-based learning

Did you know that Dewy headed up the commission that investigated
Trotsky in Mexico? John Dewey, like Socrates, was a philosopher first and
educational theorist second, and like Socrates, his progressive educational
theory has been simplified to the level of caricature. It is often assumed that
he favoured an extreme version of discovery learning. This was not in fact the
case. As a philosopher he was what is called a ‘pragmatist’, a school of
philosophy that emerged from Pierce and James in the 19th century. As befits an
American with strong democratic beliefs he saw education as leading towards
authentic participation in a democratic nation.

His reflections on the nature of knowledge, experience and
communication, combined with his views of democracy and community, led to an
educational theory that started with a broad based vision of what education
should be, an identification of educational methods and a practical view of its
implementation. He practised what he preached through his own ‘Laboratory
School’.

Problem
based learning

He is best known for his problem-solving approach to learning. In
line with his view that science and experimentation lay at the heart of
learning for both a person and society, he encouraged innovation and abhorred
dogmatic principles and practices. For Dewey, exposure to certain types of
learning experiences are more important than others. Schools should create
learning opportunities by engaging in occupational activities, as practised by
the rest of society. He was keen on ‘occupational’ learning and practical
skills that produced independent, self-directing, autonomous adults. That
schools had become divorced from society was one of his basic claims. In his
model school, the students planted wheat and cotton, processed and transported
it for sale to market.

Schools
– divorced from society

Dewey spoke out against communism as well as the right-wing threat
in US politics, including what he saw as reactionary Catholicism. A recent
reappraisal sees him as a typical American liberal believing in a secular
approach and reform in education, moving it beyond the limitations of
traditional ‘schooling’. He was refreshingly honest about their limitations and
saw schools as only one means of learning, ‘and
compared with other agencies, a relatively superficial means’. In fact, he
was keen to break down the boundaries of school, seeing them as a community
within a community or an ‘embryonic society’. Schools are necessary but must
not get obsessed with streaming, testing and not be overly academic in the
curriculum. They must reflect the real world, not sit above and apart from
society.

Learning

However, Dewey was not a full-on progressive and had little time
for Rousseau’s free approach to the acquisition of knowledge and skills.
Structure and teaching were important. Perhaps his most important contribution
to education is his constant attempts to break down the traditional dualities
in education between theory and practice, academic and vocational, public and
private, individual and group. This mode of thinking, he thought, led education
astray. The educational establishment, in his view, seemed determined to keep
themselves, and their institutions, apart from the real world by holding on to
abstract and often ill-defined definitions about the purpose of education.

Conclusion

Dewey is a child of the Enlightenment, a progressive thinker, not
a traditionalist. More importantly for our purposes, experiential learning
through Kolb and others had its origins in Dewey. His views on schools and how
they relate to a modern, democratic society are also of lasting interest. Those
involved in the modern debate about a more active role for schools in their
community can benefit from a re-reading of Dewey as he raises important issues
about the relevance of education, the destructive institutional practices and
the lack of practical, pragmatic, vocational and life-skills teaching.

Bibliography

Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education. An introduction to
the philosophy of education (1966 edn.), New York: Free Press.

Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think. A restatement of the relation of
reflective thinking to the educative process (Revised edn.), Boston: D. C.
Heath.

Monday, March 26, 2012

James (1842-1910) – father of modern psychology, develop habits, learn by doing

William James, elder brother of Henry James the novelist, asked
his younger brother to stay close for six weeks after he died, as he wanted to
try to contact him from the next world. No messages were ever received but it
showed how seriously he took real inquiry and experimentation. In fact he is
widely regarded as the father of modern psychology. His The Principles of
Psychology (1890)set the tone for future inquiry into the mind,
establishing psychology as a separate discipline; the scientific study of the
mind. Grounded in his philosophical theory of pragmatism, James’s theories emphasised
the consequences of one’s actions, rather than pure theoretical speculation.

Learning
by doing

Like Locke, he wrote a practical book Talks to Teachers
(1899), originally a series of lectures, giving practical advice to teachers.
The difference is that psychology had now become, through his efforts, a
science, and its principles could be used in practice. It was here that he put
forward his now famous theory on learning by doing. This was to heavily
influence John Dewey, and the future of educational theory through to Kolb and
others. The book doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, as psychology is a
science; teaching an art. But some psychological principles are clear.

Vocational
learning - habits

Like Locke, he believed that education is, above all, the
organization of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies to behaviour.
Children should not be expected to learn by rote. Their experiences must be
turned into useful and habitual behaviour through action. The learner must
listen, but then take notes, experiment, write essays, measure, consult and
apply.

He recommends learning through work and the creation of real
things or dealings with real people in, for example, a shop, to give you
educational experiences beyond mere theory. He was in fact a firm advocate of
vocationally oriented schools and work-based learning (relevant today or not?).

The supervision of the acquisition of habit is another of his
principles. Habit is the enormous flywheel of society,
and should be exercised until securely rooted. The result of almost all
learning is this habitual behaviour. Association, interest, attention, will and
motivation; these are James’s driving forces in education. In addition there’s
memory, curiosity, emulation, constructiveness, pride, fear and love - all
impulses that must be turned to good use. This is not to say that he favoured a
lazy, or what he called ‘soft pedagogics’. He recognized that learning was
sometimes hard, even arduous.

Conclusion

William James proved to be a turning point in the history of both
psychology and educational theory. He set both off in a more orderly fashion,
introducing the scientific study of the mind as applied to learning. This has
since proved to be by far the most fruitful approach to education and learning
theory, although still often ignored. In particular, his emphasis on learning
by doing still reverberates through Dewey, Kolb and others.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Mohammed (570AD –632AD) - books, recitation, memorisation and writing

It
is claimed that Mohammed was illiterate and the Koran, was literally the word
of God, transcribed by others (like Socrates) from his revelations. Mohammed is
therefore a prophet and teacher but in reality a mouthpiece for the absolute
message of God.

Koran and education

Books, especially the Koran, are held in the
highest regard and mosques functioned as repositories of books. In Sura 75:15–18
attentive reading is specifically mentioned. This reverence for the ‘book’, especially the Koran, is
paramount. Indeed it was almost immediately made into a ‘codex’ (book form), as
they had acquired paper technology from captured Chinese sailors in 751AD. One
had to even wash before touching the Koran.

The
dominant role this one book, of similar length to the Gospels, has had on
education in the Muslim world cannot be underestimated. For five centuries
after its emergence in the 7th century, the so called ‘Golden Age of
Arabic culture, encouraged centres of learning in Damascus, Bagdad and Cairo. Their
libraries collected and distributed Western classical texts and made advances
in mathematics, science, philosophy and law.

Recite and repeat

Koran
means ‘to recite’ and the text was originally meant to be read aloud. It has been
argued that this has led to a dependence on rote learning. Prayer is one of the
five pillars of Islam, recommended five times a day, so the repetition of recitation,
known to be effective for embedding knowledge in long term memory, becomes an
ingrained habit, as does listening attentively, especially at Friday prayers
and also through the attentive reading of the Koran. On the other hand this
focus on recitation and repetition tends to infect studies across all subjects
and education in the Arab world has been criticised for its dependence on simple
recitation at the expense of critical analysis.

Memorisation

Islam
literally means ‘submission’ and it has been argued that this affects the way
learners and teachers approach education. In particular, memorisation of the
Koran, which has been admired for centuries in the Muslim world, may have
encouraged the memorisation and
regurgitation of text, rather than analysis and critical thinking. With traditional paternalism, authority of
the state and dominance of religion, some argue, comes a lack of questioning,
passive learners and didactic teaching. Obedience and compliance, not unusual
in other educational systems, are arguably much more embedded in Islamic
countries. The time spent on religious studies also squeezes out time available
for other subjects. This may be another reason for the low levels of original
research and patents in countries where Islamic education is dominant.

Koran and writing

Writing, not only through the Koran, but in other
expository texts, is a strong feature of Islamic education. Sura 96 urges
believers to ‘recite’ but also explains that God taught man through the ‘pen’,
namely writing. Writing, especially calligraphy, is regarded as a high art
form, as it is in the East (but never was in in the West). The double edged sword is that the power of
the pen is seen as the power of God’s absolute religious knowledge, not the
freedom to write critically. Indeed, the writing, even drawing, has led to
death threats ‘fatwas’, on novelists and cartoonists. Islam, like Christianity,
has supported the extremes of rigorous scholarship and education but also bans
on education (especially for women) and even the burning of books.

E-learning

The Arab world has
one written language, and, as the Arab Spring has proven, its demographically young
populations have used technology to depose dictators and criticise the
cronyism, nepotism and corruption in those societies. With this may come a more
open attitude and access to education, using the technology they so
successfully used in learning how to change their systems of government. We
should start to see the emergence of good Arabic content, tools that cater for
the Arabic language and an increased use of technology based learning, along
with the democratisation of education.

Conclusion

For all its
educational qualities, the focus on one book, its absolute truth and primitive
recitation, repletion and memorisation seem like primitive pedagogies, leaving
little room for active and critical thought. Islam, like the extremes of Christianity
and Judaism, can be seen as a return to an absolute form of dogmatism, where
young minds are locked down before they have had a chance to reflect or choose.
This is an anathema to secularists who believe that education should open young
minds not close them down. On the other hand, let us not forget that the
Islamic world encouraged learning, scholarship and intellectual endeavour,
gifting the world those texts of the Classical world we now so admire.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Jesus, as a teacher, was primarily a man of action but in terms of
instruction it was his powerful parables and sermons that stand out in the
Gospels. Importantly, there is no sense of exclusion as he encourages shunned
lepers, hated tax inspectors, prostitutes, criminals and especially the poor, to
receive his message. Has there been any more radical and effective teacher? When
it came to powerful messages it was through his individual acts of love,
kindness and forgiveness that make their mark. However, there is much to learn
from how he taught.

Parables

Parables were not used by him to impose moral rules but to show,
by story-telling, how to act by listening to examples of how others have acted.
Jesus was clear about why he used them and why they worked, explaining this in
the Gospels. Parables are image rich and allow the listener or reader to
picture the scene and recall from episodic memory. They appeal to the illiterate
poor and have the power to change behaviour and lives. Christian art is full of
images that retell these parables, as most people across the ages were
illiterate.

Sermons

Jesus also used sermons, notably the Sermon on the Mount, to tell
his story and the sermon was to become the priest and preachers pedagogic
weapon for centuries to come. Paul the Apostle was the man who took
Christianity to the world, preaching in major cities and shaped the way
Christianity was to be spread and taught for the almost two millennia. From
Paul we get the read speech and authoritative sermon. This is not the Sermon on
the Mount but the proselytising sermon that we still hear from every pulpit,
priest and preacher to this day.

Sermon
to lecture

Given the hold religion had on educational institutions until
relatively recently, especially Universities, it is hardly surprising that the sermon
transmogrified into the ‘lecture’, which to this day, remains the main
pedagogic technique in Higher education. In education it moved from pulpit to
lectern. ‘Lectern’ means ‘reading desk’ and the word ‘lecture’, from the 14th
century meant ‘the act of reading’,
from the Latin ‘to read’. It was only
in the 16th century that this shifted to mean a talk for teaching a specific
topic or subject. The verb ‘to lecture’
is first recorded in 1590. This pre-print pedagogy remains the primary
pedagogic method in Higher Education, despite the overwhelming evidence that it
is inefficient and runs counter to almost everything we know about the
psychology of learning.

E-learning

We can learn from the power of parables, that attitudinal change
can come if we show exemplary behaviour in a way that is memorable, through
story-telling. This has been the power of YouTube, TED and video. We should
also remember that this is not the way to treat all forms of learning. In the
end it is through action that we learn to change ourselves. The point is not just
to look and listen but to act.

Conclusion

Has there been any more powerful teacher? His only rival is
perhaps the Buddha or Mohammed. This one man shaped two millennia of thought
and culture through the use of simple parables and sermons. These were to be
retold and evangelised by others such as Paul, and armies of preachers, to
congregations, largely in churches, that continues to this day. Note that some,
like Nietzsche, thought that this led to a two millennia aberration and, in
particular, a thousand years stultifying scholasticism. The religious influence
on pedagogy also meant that the sermon became the dull one hour lecture, which
still dominates much of our educational pedagogy today. This has held back
pedagogic progress rendering much higher education a slow, ponderous and too often
tedious affair. There is, of course, the threat to science posed by
fundamentalist Christianity, in its denial of evolutionary theory, especially
in the US. However, overall Christianity has more recently played a key role in
the provision of universal schooling.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) – original & radical

Mary Wollstonecraft bursts with originality in her thoughts on
education rejecting the dry, dull teaching of the day, even recommending
peer-justice by students. However, she is best known for her ground-breaking
work in politics and education, work on the education of women that has resonated
through to 20th century feminism. She adopted the Enlightenment love
of reason in educational theory but wrote a devastating attack on Rousseau’s crude
recommendations on the education of women. Women deserved the same education as
men and the right to be educated alongside men. But she had more to say on
education than this one principle.

Vindications

In her Vindication of the
Rights of Men (1790), a political
work, she is critical of the gender-based language and gender analogies used by
Burke and launches a verbal broadside into the monarchy and aristocracy, in
favour of republicanism. In this she invokes the Enlightenment ideas of reason
and progress.But it is in Chapter
12 of her A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman (1792) that she presents a detailed account of her educational views.

Schools
– innovations

She launches a direct attack on the schools and schooling of the
day, especially boarding schools, as she thinks it is vital that children receive
both home life and some structured respite from home for learning. However, she
castigates educators for their ‘fear of
innovation’ and decries the lines of benches and ‘parrot-like prattle’. State funded day schools should be available
to all. Most importantly, she is firmly against single-sex schools. It is
important that both girls and boys learn from and about each other for a
harmonious society. Long vacations are undesirable, as they both disrupt
learning, leading to forgetting, and place too much pressure on the home
environment.

Teaching

Much teaching is pedantic and tyrannical with its recitation and
focus on Latin and Greek. And in a prescient passage notes that, ‘It is not for the benefit of society that a
few brilliant men should be brought forward at the expense of the multitude’.
With echoes of Rousseau she recommends a broad curriculum but with a focus on
open air and exercise. And harking back to Socrates, she recommends that some
subjects, notably religion, history, the history of man and politics, be taught
through conversation.

Peer-punishment

On discipline she recommends that peer-punishment be implemented
making it free from teachers, so that the students learn justice from practice.
How innovative is that!

Women
and education

Rousseau’s position on the education of women, which saw them as not
only lacking the abilities of men but be taught for the pleasure of men. Women,
Wollstonecraft stated, must seek intellectual autonomy and should not depend on
men for that goal. They are not, as some at that time claimed, slaves to their
emotional passions and have the ability to develop rational and intellectual
passions and abilities. In short, women have the right to the same education as
men and to be taught alongside men.

In detail, she provides an analysis of the enslavement to the body
beautiful 250 years before the feminism of the late 20th century. Interestingly,
she was sensitive to the different roles women have from men, as wives and
mothers, but saw that this only has a bearing in the sense that education and
reason improves the skills needed in these roles. This is a debate that is
still alive in feminist thinking. But before we see her as a wholly modern,
educational theorist we must also remember that she thought that poor children should
be taught in separate schools.

Conclusion

It is delightful to read of Enlightenment innovations on the
curriculum, the school calendar and discipline that would put our modern-day
educational establishment to shame. But her primary contribution is that she
challenged society to offer equal political and educational rights to women,
claiming that the only way to prove her case was to put it to the test. We did,
and it passed the test magnificently. Although it was well into the 20th
century before it happened and even quite recently some Universities did not
admit women. A recent vindication of her work is the fact that women, in many
countries, now outperform men in education and that the education of women is
seen as a key to economic prosperity in the developing world.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Rousseau (1712-1778) – prickly, paranoid, noble savage

It’s hard to see a man who handed all five of his children up to
an orphanage at birth, as an expert on the development and education of
children. Prickly and paranoid, he managed to fall out with almost everyone,
including those who tried to help him, like David Hume. Yet Jean Jaques
Rousseau wrote extensively on education, including a major novel ‘Emile (On Education)’, still arguably
the most important novel on education ever written and his influence on
education has been long-lasting and profound.

Noble
savage

As an exponent of The Noble Savage he saw civilisation as a
corrupting influence, creating inequalities and conflict. His educational
theories are an attempt to avoid such corruption within the mind of essentially
good human beings, the antithesis of the Hobbesian notion of our intrinsic
savagery.

Learner-centric

With a passing nod to Locke in the preface to Emile, he states his
intention to build a complete theory of education from the point of view of the
learner. Emile grows from a boy to a man and Rousseau tracks his inner, natural
growth, matched by education appropriate to these natural stages of
development. It is the learner that matters and the learner who develops in a
natural fashion, not shaped by teachers but growing in response to
opportunities for development.

The book develops over five
sections The first two are about giving the child freedom to explore and drink
from his/her senses, as their ability to focus on serious learning is absent
and when forced, is counterproductive. It is only at around 12 that the
education of the mind should be considered. From 15-20 we are born again as we
develop naturally into adults. This time of turbulent emotion allows us to
learn about conflict, morals and religion. We must experience a gradual
introduction into the ways of the world and wider society, but it is between
20-25 that one must be introduced to society. Here Emile meets Sophie, who he
will marry. Rousseau takes this opportunity to draw differences between the
education of men and women, based on his belief that the two sexes are
naturally different.

Educational principles – nature, men and things

Education comes from nature, men and things, these are our three
masters and nature is the most important. The child, naturally good, needs
simple freedom and not rushed into inappropriate or unnatural educational
activity. Play and self-reliance are important. From then on, each stage of
natural development needs appropriate and personal education with learning
appropriately matched to age. The focus is on motivation, first through
restlessness, then curiosity and later goals. People do not need to be taught
in a traditional sense; they need to be exposed to problems and come to their
own conclusions.

E-learning

In many ways, the presentation of self-paced e-learning, open access to knowledge through
Google, Wikipedia and Open Educational resources and projects such as the hole-in-the-wall’
work of Sugata Mitra, are heirs to the Rousseau dream. There is, to this day, a
feeling that the strictures and structures of post-industrial revolution are
harmful and counter-productive have led to a search for more natural and meaningful
ways to learn. We may yet find that Rousseau’s dream will become a reality.

Conclusion

David Hume wrote, “He
is plainly mad, after having long been maddish”, and although Rousseau's
legacy has been profound, it is problematic. Having encouraged the idea of
romantic naturalism and the idea of the noble and good child, that merely needs
to be nurtured in the right way through discovery learning, he perhaps paints
an over-romantic picture of education as natural development. The Rousseau
legacy is the idea that all of our educational ills come from the domineering
effect of society and its institutional approach to educational development. If
we are allowed to develop naturally, he claims, all will be well. This may be
an over-optimistic view of human nature and development, and although not
without truth, lacks psychological depth. Emile, as Althusser claimed, now
reads like a fictional utopia.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1692),
is really a practical guide, rather than a theoretical treatise but that’s what
makes it so fascinating and readable. Widely translated, it became a manual for
education among the upper classes for most of 18th century.

As the greatest philosopher of his age, he laid the foundations
for empiricism and the enlightenment view of knowledge, politics and education.
Sceptical of the educational practices of his day, it was a break from the dry,
educational stranglehold of medieval scholasticism. His is a sophisticated
theory of education built, not around the transmission of information, but the
shaping of habits and character, and in some detail.

Motivation
matters

As a libertarian he thought that the learner must not be coerced
nor learn when they are not in the right frame of mind, neither should they be
beaten. They must be made to feel as if it is in their own interest, and that
they are acting from their own free will. Without pleasure and play, the child
will become demotivated. Conversation is strongly favoured over lecturing, and
the child’s character and temperament needs to be understood if they are to be
taught well. Not that children should be spoilt. Indeed he recommends that
parents, in particular, should be tough on their children in their early years.

Habits

His approach is a series of very practical methods for encouraging
good habits and character right down to details on curiosity, games, language
learning, dancing etc. He recommends educational methods that focus on example
and practice, rather than the teaching of information and principles, as
children do not remember or apply rules. In this sense, it is not learning that
matters, but the establishment of good learning habits. It is repeated practice
that reinforces these behaviours so they become instinctive, through the use of
the concrete rather than the abstract. This is way ahead of its time.

Academic
and vocational skills (but not the arts)

In particular, everyone should learn a manual skill, such as
carpentry, as it helps relax the mind. Beyond this, his focus is on a healthy
mind that has the basics in reading, writing, arithmetic and a knowledge of
literature along with the natural and social sciences. The arts, like Plato, he
regarded as either useless or dangerous. Detailed scholarly study should be
left to those who want to become scholars.

Sceptical
on schools

He does not recommend school (for those who can afford tutors),
and sets great store on the enthusiasm of parents, and the family in general.
Schools, he thought, merely perpetuate bad company and bad habits of behaviour.
He explicitly rejects the focus on Greek and Latin through the teaching of
grammar. A cross-curricular approach should, for example, move from French
through geography (places in France) and only after a knowledge of numbers to
longitude and latitude then Copernican astronomy. It is this orderly approach
to the curriculum that puts the practical before the abstract, that lies at the
heart of his pedagogy.

Travel

Lastly, and not many learning theorists touch on this, Locke
recommends travel, not at 16-20 (the gap year norm) but either before this age,
to acquire a language, or after when one can truly appreciate the difference
between your own and another culture.

Conclusion

His thoughts on education, although influential, are weakened by
the fact that, like most pure empiricists, he saw the mind as a table rasa or blank slate. But this was
tempered by his recognition of individual character. We can now see that he was
also a product of the age, making a firm distinction between the education of
Gentlemen and the masses but remember also that he was an active investor and
political supporter of the slave trade.

These points aside,, it is the idea of a free mind, that uses the
power of reason to become contributory, autonomous adults in a free society,
that mark out this educational theory. The sweeping scope of his thinking and thoroughly
practical recommendations are impressive, couching education in a sophisticated
theory of knowledge and liberal political society with observations and general
views on education that point towards a tradition that focused on character and
autonomy within society, rather than the transmission of knowledge.